TCU Attendance Suffers

[Stallion]

SMU had 15,000 of their own fans in their own stadium against local state schools-Texas A&M and Texas Tech. TCU easily had twice as many of their own fans playing a 3-4 team a thousand miles away. 41632 Paying customers SMU won't get 20,000 paying customers for any of their AAC games. Speaks for itself

What's the difference between a 41,000 paid crowd and a 15,000 paid crowd like we got for our HOMECOMING? Oh about 2 Million Dollars a game before you even start calculating the Big 12 TV and Bowl revenue

Now continue with your nonsense.

[BIGHORSE]

And here he is.

[TidePony]

So, here are my ideas for improving attendance: number one, take the 15,000 loyal fans (and applause to them) and somehow attract another 5,000 fans from the under grad student population, graduate school population, and alumni that live within a three hour drive of the University. I have no idea how many alumni live within 3 hours of Ford, but hopefully enough.

I do know the "Back to the 80s" gameday presentation was great, the halftime cheerleading show was good, and the overall gameday presentation has improved this year by a lot. (That's 20,000)

2nd, have MYF day and invite all the Methodist youth from the surrounding areas to a specified game. Give them a free ticket, T-Shirt with advertisers on the back to curve the cost, plus announce their church's name on the jumbotron.

3rd, on another date invite all the area Methodist choirs to come to a game and have them sing the National Anthem with the Mustang Band in mass before a game. Again, ticket, t-shirt, and jumbotron for participants.

Maybe some of these good people might get hooked on SMU games and keep coming back. And, hire a head coach that understands the reality of PR, recruiting, and well of course quality coaching.

Okay, flame away, these ideas are likely not new, but I think worth a thought.

PS: NO dogs on the BLVD, and we need to allocate more money to increase the size of the band and recruit DFW area band students because they will have "band parents" strapped to both hips at games. Band parents seem to be very loyal.

[AusTxPony]

Stallion, he's right on cue making sure we know. Our attedance sucks. I keep forgetting.

[LHS81]

41,000 paid attendance. . .

[PonyKai]

Stallion, he's right on cue making sure we know. Our attedance sucks. I keep forgetting.

But give him credit. It was an entire post without a single first person reference. That deserves at least a polite golf clap.

[Charleston Pony]

Why the hell is West Virginia in the big 12 again??

is that a serious question?

It's all about the $$$. The Big XII made overtures to Clemson and Florida State and the ACC circled the wagons, not about to give up it's prized jewels in football. In case you are not aware, West Virginia puts 50-60,000 fans in their stadium, dressed in yellow when asked...and does so no matter who they play. TCU is fortunate to have been invited to join the Big XII but they eared that invite by dominating the "non-power conferences" on the field and earnings BCS Bowl bids. They probably clinched their invite after their showing both on the field and in the stands for that Rose Bowl win against Wisconsin. West Virginia was the crème of the Big East football programs and wasn't seeing any interest from either the ACC or SEC, where they would much rather be, so Big XII was their best option at the time.

Since this thread is about TCU's actual butts in seats attendance dropping off, at least they sold tickets this year. The truth is, they are only a string of losing seasons away from becoming closer to what they were in the final days of the SWC and their program could look a lot more like SMU than any other Big XII school. That's the downside of having a small student enrollment and alumni base, but SMU would give it's left nut to be in TCU's place these days.

[CalallenStang]

Why the hell is West Virginia in the big 12 again??

The same reason TCU is in the Big 12. The conference needed warm bodies to try to keep the remaining members from looking elsewhere and Neinas took the two schools who either could pay their way out of commitments to other conferences by 2012 (TCU) or said that they would sue their way out by 2012 (WVU).

Tcu is in the big 12 because they've been a very competitive program and have local ties to nearly every school in the big 12.

WVU is not comparable. No history with Texas and the surrounding region. And no one around here gives a crap about them.

You are incorrect. TCU doesn't get that call without being available in 2012 (and it was easy for them - all they had to do was pay $5 mil which is chump change). They didn't add anything to the B12 in terms of media markets - the only thing they added was a warm body and the B12 needed warm bodies in 2012 to avoid having the conference break apart.

WVU doesn't get that call without being available in 2012 (and it was more difficult for them - as they had to sue and negotiate their way out).

[TidePony]

WV begged the SEC to join and were denied because "they were too redneck" and lacked a big money media market.

[Charleston Pony]

SMU had 15,000 of their own fans in their own stadium against local state schools-Texas A&M and Texas Tech. TCU easily had twice as many of their own fans playing a 3-4 team a thousand miles away. 41632 Paying customers SMU won't get 20,000 paying customers for any of their AAC games. Speaks for itself

What's the difference between a 41,000 paid crowd and a 15,000 paid crowd like we got for our HOMECOMING? Oh about 2 Million Dollars a game before you even start calculating the Big 12 TV and Bowl revenue

Now continue with your nonsense.

hey...the truth hurts. Anyone that is really paying attention has to be wondering whether SMU is ever going to be capable of playing big boy football by today's rules. I'm not sure we are capable of ever filling Ford with our own fans, so all the talk (by some) of expanding Ford just makes me laugh. I really think our best chance of playing in a big boy conference is by establishing a powerhouse basketball program...by becoming the "Duke of Dallas" that Doherty envisioned when he took the job. Much easier to find another 4-5,000 bandwagon fans and develop a loyal enough following to pack Moody...no matter who the opponent might be...so, much like Duke, some of the bigger schools will value our membership in their conference.

[Charleston Pony]

WV begged the SEC to join and were denied because "they were too redneck" and lacked a big money media market.

while there might have been a little Hatfields vs McCoys concern by some, it was the lack of strong enough media markets that could help in media rights renegotiations that turned off the SEC. The ACC realized that by bringing in Pitt, they captured that media market and got the stronger academic institution, so they just didn't need two more mouths to feed.

[gostangs]

Our paid crowd at homecoming was quite a bit bigger than 15k. Not saying it isn't still embarrassing, just that it is larger than that.

TCU is at a pretty big crossroads for remainder of this year and next. If Briles stays at Baylor it seems to me they are in the spot TCU wants - and tcu will have a hard time pulling in the talent they need to compete after UT, A&M, Baylor, OU, OSU plus other nationals pick over the Texas talent. They should be praying UT grabs Briles, so there some sort of drop off. They just don't have the depth on the bench to compete, and their fan base has gotten just spoiled enough to vote with their feet. They have 8k students, so a ton of their fans are ft worth hometowners who have adopted them, but who will bail if they start getting drilled. Not sure how they finish above any of the top 5 schools in the conference going forward.

Of course we would switch with them in a heartbeat, so not saying they are in worse spot. Just saying it could get a lot less fun over there. Couple that with UT opening up their admissions a bit, which effects them WAAAY more than it does us, and the progress they have made in admissions lately could erode quickly.

They can at least solve problems with big 12 money. That is where we fall behind unless we can get that fixed.

[dr rc]

Our paid crowd at homecoming was quite a bit bigger than 15k. Not saying it isn't still embarrassing, just that it is larger than that.

I call BS on that

If the paid attendance was higher that would have been the announced attendance number.

[Stallion]

SMU announced 15786 at Homecoming -SMU SID has said in past that includes tickets distributed-not necessarily in attendance or actually sold. For example, I forgot what group was sitting in the North end zone that day but those would be included in tickets distributed. So would the sea of Band Members at the Rutgers game. On the other hand, TCU has sold out its season not including visitors allotment and student tickets so TCU's announced attendance is likely the harder number of actual tickets sold. Get used to it-SMU will draw few opposing fans in the AAC which exposes the true number of actual SMU fans

[LHS81]

Um, okay!